you're eating your heart out about something. How
come?"

"Red Perris is overdue," she said. "But I don't want to bother you with
my troubles, Dad."

"Red Perris? Who's he?"

"Don't you remember? I told you how he rode Rickety. And now I've sent
for him to come and hunt Alcatraz--because once that man-killing horse
is dead, it will be easy to get the mares back. And every day counts--
every day the mares are getting wilder!"

"What mares?" Then he nodded. "I remember. And they ain't nothing but
that worrying you, Marianne."

His expression of concern vanished; his glance wandered far east where
the shades were already brimming the valleys.

"I'll be getting on, then, honey."

All at once, for pity at thought of him driving into the lonely
silences, she caught his hand. It was still lean, hard of palm, sinewy
with strength of which most extreme age, indeed, would never entirely
rob it. And the touch of those strong fingers called back to her mind
the picture of Oliver Jordan as he had been, a kingly man among men.
Tears came into the eyes of Marianne.

"But where are you going?" she asked him gently. "And why do you never
let me go with you, dear?"

"You?" he chuckled. "Waste time driving out nowheres with an old codger
like me? I didn't give you all that schooling to have you throw your
life away doing things like that. Don't you bother about me, Marianne.
I'm just going to drift over yonder around Jackson Peak. You see?"

"But who is there, and what is there?"

He merely rubbed his knuckles across his forehead and then shook his
head. "I dunno. Nothing much. It's tolerable quiet, though. And you get
the smell of the pines the minute the trail starts climbing. Sort of a
lazy place to go, but then I've turned into a lazy man, honey. Just
sitting and thinking is about all I'm good for, or most like just the
sitting without the thinking. Why, Marianne, where'd you get them
tears?"

She choked them back.

"I wish--I wish--" she began.

"That's right," he nodded. "Keep right on wishing things. That's what I
been doing lately. And wishing things is better than doing them. The way
kids are, that's the best way to be. S'long, Marianne."

She stepped back, trying valiantly to smile, and he raised a cautioning
finger, chuckling: "Look here, now, don't you go to bothering your head
about me. Just save your worrying for this Perris gent."

He clucked to the greys and their sudden start threw him violently
agai